Uri Geller

Turley

"In August 1972, he [Uri Geller] went to the United States at the invitation of astronaut Captain Edgar Mitchell of the Apollo 14 mission, the sixth man to set foot on the moon, and scientist, inventor and late parapsychologist Andrija Puharich M.D. Among notable scientists he met was Dr. Werner von Braun, "Father of the Space Age", who testified that his own wedding ring bent in his hand without being touched at any time by Geller."
-source http://psychicinvestigator.com/demo/UriBlvr3.htm

"At JREF (James Randi Educational Foundation), we offer a one-million-dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event...To date, no one has ever passed the preliminary tests."
-source http://www.randi.org/research/

Thoughts?

Myksyk

If Geller bent my wedding ring I'd slap him!

Other thougths? ... some people are more easily fooled than others ... if you don't know what to look for in a scam, you're an easy mark.

robindch

> Werner von Braun [...] testified that his own wedding ring bent
> in his hand without being touched [...] by Geller.
>
> Thoughts?

That a rocket engineer wasn't very good at magic tricks?

- robin.

Turley

robindch wrote:

That a rocket engineer wasn't very good at magic tricks?

Apparently neither was "the sixth man to man to set foot on the moon."

Should we think we are less easily fooled?

Turley

Myksyk wrote:

... some people are more easily fooled than others ... if you don't know what to look for in a scam, you're an easy mark.

What should we look for?

robindch

> > That a rocket engineer wasn't very good at magic tricks?
>
> Apparently neither was "the sixth man to man to set foot on the moon."
> Should we think we are less easily fooled?

...who's 'we', and what on earth (or the moon) are this group of people being fooled about?

- robin.

Turley

robindch wrote:

> > That a rocket engineer wasn't very good at magic tricks?
>
> Apparently neither was "the sixth man to man to set foot on the moon."
> Should we think we are less easily fooled?

...who's 'we', and what on earth (or the moon) are this group of people being fooled about?

- robin.

"We" is all of us. If an intelligent man like Werner von Braun can be fooled, can't we all be fooled? "What are we being fooled about?" seems a reasonable question, if we accept that we can be fooled.

robindch

> an intelligent man like Werner von Braun can be fooled

Geller is a conjurer and makes a pile of cash by fooling people with basic conjuring tricks. In return, Von Braun could probably have fooled Geller about rockets, but probably didn't. The story didn't say anything about Geller trying to fool VB about rockets, nor anything about VB reaching over to pull an egg out from behind Geller's ear.

So what can we learn from this -- that experts in a topic know more about the topic than non-experts? Hardly an earth-shattering conclusion

- robin.

Turley

robindch wrote:

> an intelligent man like Werner von Braun can be fooled

Geller is a conjurer and makes a pile of cash by fooling people with basic conjuring tricks. In return, Von Braun could probably have fooled Geller about rockets, but probably didn't. The story didn't say anything about Geller trying to fool VB about rockets, nor anything about VB reaching over to pull an egg out from behind Geller's ear.

So what can we learn from this -- that experts in a topic know more about the topic than non-experts? Hardly an earth-shattering conclusion

- robin.

I think there is more here than the obvious. Uri Geller is more than a conjuror. He is a skilled scam artist. He claims to be something he is not. He never claims to be a conjuror. Werner von Braun, OTOH claimed to be a rocket scientist.

Had Uri Geller shown von Braun a card trick or pulled an egg from his ear the rocket scientist may have been fooled as well, but not to the extent of believing something that was not true. He would have believed Uri Geller was a magician.

The rocket scientist was lacking knowledge of something more than just conjuring skills. More than simple sleight of hand fooled von Braun.

People can know Uri Geller is a fraud without studying magic. Uri Geller might have said, "You don't need to be a rocket scientist to fool Werner von Braun. And you don't need to be a magician either because I am not." Any thoughts on how von Braun could have been wiser? We are all subject to the same error.

bus77

This seems to be a problem to skeptical philosophy. You can not apply pure reason, true/false logic, to human nature/history/politics.
Probability, even chaos theory, is far more realistic.

It seems plain to me von Braun would have been extra nice to Gellers work, considering the two mens lineage/history. "That's a good trick" could easily have become "OMG! The best magic I've ever seen!!".

Turley wrote:

Uri Geller is more than a conjuror. He is a skilled scam artist.

Thats true

Turley

bus77 wrote:

It seems plain to me von Braun would have been extra nice to Gellers work, considering the two mens lineage/history.

Please explain what you mean by considering their lineage/history.

bus77

Well, consider von Braun's history. Started off his career working for a government that he later found out was reponsible for murder on a grand scale.
This was out of his control but It surely must have weighed heavily on his mind.

Now in walks Uri Geller. A young Jewish man. When asked to comment on Uri's work It was also an opportunity to help or hinder his career as a magician/conjurer/scam artist.
If you found yourself in a similar situation with a similar backround, would you be more inclined to say "Nay! This is not valid science!" or "Yay!, He's on too somthing!"

In fact I would'nt be suprised if Yuri himself instigated a bit of "Wink-wink nudge-nudge, help me out here boss " with von Braun.

He's a smart fella

SkepticOne

bus77 wrote:

Probability, even chaos theory, is far more realistic.

How would you apply chaos theory to this?

rubadub

Has anybody seen Uri's Biopic, it is the funniest thing I ever saw, I thought it was a pisstake when I saw it. He teleports dogs in it and kills people with his mind. In the end something absolutely crazy was going on about the 200o olympics

ISAW

Myksyk wrote:

If Geller bent my wedding ring I'd slap him!

Other thougths? ... some people are more easily fooled than others ... if you don't know what to look for in a scam, you're an easy mark.

I thought all wedding rings were bent! Thats why they call them rings!

ISAW

bus77 wrote:

This seems to be a problem to skeptical philosophy. You can not apply pure reason, true/false logic, to human nature/history/politics.
Probability, even chaos theory, is far more realistic.

It seems plain to me von Braun would have been extra nice to Gellers work, considering the two mens lineage/history. "That's a good trick" could easily have become "OMG! The best magic I've ever seen!!".


Thats true

Not alone the WWII German rocket scientist and Jew issue but the context as well. In the 70 the "new age" anf hippi think and "new thinking" and paranormal were I would suggest more popularly connected. Peole trusted scientists more and accepted argument from opinion because the people saying it were "boffins" today people are more skeptical. well there are more skeptical people at andy rate but one can also say that the rate of growth in believers in all sorts of silly stuff is also high.

One might also consider the UFO thing. I believe the Astronaut in question has odd beliefs about paranormal and UFO's. Now many people are not aware that Geller originally claimed that his "powers" came from a UFO which he saw in Israel (in his back garden I think - odd how the heavily militarised Israelis didnt also see it!). So when the UFO thing was popular he sought out a space scientist and an Astronaut to endorse his claims.

Last of all endorsement is not evidence! Geller never took the million dollar challenge and constantly refers to being "tested" by MIT! That was I believe
1. In the seventies
2. ( from memory) A Putoff and Targ thing hardly evidence
3. He has been caught out several times since

As Randi said "If he is using psychic power to do what he does he is doing it the hard way!"

Zombrex

Turley wrote:

"who testified that his own wedding ring bent in his hand without being touched at any time by Geller."

Thoughts?

His own wedding ring probably did seem to bend in his hand (though I am not quite sure what they mean by "bend").

The issue is if Geller did this through a simple magic trick or if he did it through the "POWER OF HIS MIND!!"

I would say the former.

Obni

I can picture the 'true' origin of that story now....

Frau von Braun:
Working late again dear?
Wait a minute, where the hell's your wedding ring?

von Braun:
I, er, that is, um, it's like this.., oh! I know, Uri Geller bent it.
Yeah, that's right, good old Uri. What a guy! Well, I'm of to bed.



A rocket scientist, and that's the best he can come up with?

Zombrex

Obni wrote:

A rocket scientist, and that's the best he can come up with?

Frau von Braun:
i]sexy voice[/i Hey stud. Is that a rocket in your pocket or are you just happy to see me.

von Braun:
Actually dear, its just a rocket i]takes out minuture rocket[/i. Night.

robindch

> Geller never took the million dollar challenge

Geller and Randi have had, to say the least, a stormy relationship and have met in court quite a few times, Geller being the (mostly unsuccessful) litigious person he is. I do seem to remember reading somewhere that, following a string of losses, he's been banned from taking court cases in New York, under legislation designed to prevent people from wasting the courts' time.

> constantly refers to being "tested" by MIT!

No, he claims that he was "validated by Stanford". Which is untrue or misleading on two counts:

1. The 'Stanford' he refers to is not Stanford University, though a careless listener might think so, but instead, the Stanford Research Institute, an independent, nonprofit research institute that conducts contract research. I don't know who paid for the Geller tests here.

2. Putoff and Targ are physicists, not conjurers, and are not in a position to evaluate how Geller operates. Far as I remember, James Randi replicated Geller's test results and P+T retracted most, if not all, of their findings (which were published in Nature, though with an editorial rider stating that the procedure was flawed). What I presume is the original Nature paper is on the Geller website here, though you search in vain for any indication that the two unfortunate physicists retracted it later. The paper doesn't seem to be on the SRI website either.

> He has been caught out several times since

He was caught on camera bending a spoon with his two hands and he also suffered a famously embarassing segment on the Johnny Carson show many years ago, when Carson asked Randi to check out Geller's act. I seem to remember Geller, in the throes of a complete act failure on live telly, eventually having to blab something like "my powers don't seem to be very strong this evening" or something like that. Since then, though, he's got cuter and he tends not to promise as little as possible beforehand, and then feign surprise when something works. He's been on the Late Late a few times doing the usual spoon-bending and watch-starting nonsense.

rubadub

robindch wrote:

He was caught on camera bending a spoon with his two hands

I think I saw that, a hidden camera in a resturaunt I think. That link gave the name of the film, mindbender. Really funny, I think he kills a monkey in some research place. There are loads of soldiers chasing after him and he just knocks them out with his mind.

Obni

He was the 'victim' of a hidden camera stunt on Noel Edmond's House Party. It was supposed to be a typical ambush of a 'celebrity', but the hidden camera, positioned to capture the scene clearly showed Geller bending the fork with normal physical force.

davros

Obni wrote:

He was the 'victim' of a hidden camera stunt on Noel Edmond's House Party.

I hadn't heard of that before but a bit of googling turned up the bit of video in question.

rubadub

Anybody see the nutter on TV3 the other night. On that camp lads talk show. I only saw the tail end, dave fanning had a bent spoon.

Steve Knight

Could someone please tell me exactly which programme Geller was on or better still did anybody tape it? Thanks.

Yossie

Steve Knight wrote:

Could someone please tell me exactly which programme Geller was on or better still did anybody tape it? Thanks.

If you mean the talk show that rubadub referred to then it's the Brendan Courtney Show on Wednesday's I believe.

http://www.tv3.ie/programmes.php?action=view&id=101

Didn't see it (or tape it) since the show is generally chringingly bad anyway.:v:

Sorry I can't help anymore.

OMcGovern

That Uri Geller is a bit of a headcase....

I read his biography about 20 years ago.... he claimed to have had an encounter with a flying saucer when he was a young boy in Iraq. He also claimed, to receive messages from "entities" calling themselves "The Nine".
The messages would appear on tape recordings etc....

He's obviously a good scam artist, cos I saw a recent picture of him standing in front of his mansion. Can't blame him for trying !

Steve Knight

Hi Yossie, thanks for the link, much appreciated. Unfortunately TV3 doesn't seem to archive this show. If anyone else can tell me what happened with the spoon I'd be most grateful.

Steve

ISAW

Steve Knight wrote:

Hi Yossie, thanks for the link, much appreciated. Unfortunately TV3 doesn't seem to archive this show. If anyone else can tell me what happened with the spoon I'd be most grateful.

Steve

Davros gave the link above.